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Calendar Models Cheer Up Patients, Families at Walter Reed

Jul-16-2004 » Filed Under: General Military

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By Rudi Williams
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2004 -- It's amazing what wonderful feelings and bright smiles a dozen calendar models can bring to the faces of hospitalized servicemen recovering from war wounds.

That's what happened July 10 when Dawn Glencer and the "U.S. Angels" 2005 calendar models rode their motorcycles to the Fisher House on the Walter Reed Army Medical Center campus to visit troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. [...]

A Virginia Army National Guardsman, Spc. Dean W. Schwartz, 21, said it was nice of the women to take time to visit patients at Walter Reed. "They said they really enjoyed it and wanted to come back," he noted.

Schwartz arrived in Kuwait on March 3 with B Company, 276th Engineer Battalion, which was attached to the 2nd Infantry Division's Stryker Brigade Combat Team. He went into Iraq about five days later. On May 8, he was wounded in a rocket- propelled grenade attack.

"I was standing guard on a machine gun," he said. "My assistant gunner and me had just switched spots; he took the machine gun, and I took his M-16 rifle. (The attacker) was just concealed too good, and nobody ever saw it coming. The first thing we heard was the explosion that took off my left leg." Schwartz also suffered shrapnel injuries to his right arm, a collapsed lung and a blown eardrum.

"When I got hit, my team leader, who was the driver, sustained some shrapnel injuries, as did my assistant gunner," said Schwartz, who arrived at Walter Reed around midnight on May 13. "But they were both superficial wounds, so nobody got killed."

The wounded specialist expressed how much he and his fellow patients appreciated the visits from the calendar models. "I'd just had surgery the day before on my amputated leg that had a wound that wouldn't close, so the surgeons closed it," Schwartz noted. "It was nice to get out of the hospital and see some support right after my surgery."


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